When I woke up this morning, it was 49 degrees outside--by far the coldest it's been in months! The summer fever has finally broken, and we're getting into the best part of the year, as far as I'm concerned.
I've always preferred autumn. It's football season, of course, and while that is a great thing all by itself, well, it's not the only thing. It's nice to finally get a break from the oppressive heat of the desert. Some people think that spring is the season of renewal, but I disagree. I spent about 20 years of my life going 'back to school', so fall, to me, is the season where the slate is wiped clean.
Autumn is when you get a new set of clothes, a backpack full of new school supplies, and kinda like optimistic Cubs fans in April, this is the year you finally make straight A's. You meet new friends, get new teachers, and start all over again.
Away from the classroom, autumn is the season of apple cider, haunted houses, pumpkin pie, hayrides, family gatherings, crisp air, wood smoke, flannel sheets, chili, the fireplace, tailgating, homecoming, finally shutting off the air conditioner, harvest moons, pumpkin carving, walks in the woods, and best of all, it's the start of the holiday season. The stretch from Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Years is the best two months of the year if you as ask me.
Of course, the blessing of living in the southwestern desert comes with sacrifices. We don't really have four seasons out here. Yeah, it gets a little cooler out here, but our mountains aren't covered in stands of golden aspens and cottonwood trees like our neighbors to the north. Back in the days before the casinos owned my ass, I'd occasionally make it back to Tennessee around this time of year to visit with the family. Flying in, my face would be glued to the window on the plane, just taking in all of the unfamiliar sights of hills covered with trees, all ablaze with fall colors. It's almost overwhelming to somebody who only sees the monochromatic browns of the desert landscape day in and day out.
Autumn is the time I miss Tennessee. We don't do hayrides in Nevada. There are no cornfield mazes, and I don't see farmers on the side of the road selling pumpkins out of the back of their pickup trucks. And there aren't enough trees out here to alter the scenery if the leaves ever get around to changing colors before they fall off.
Several years ago I saw the most picture perfect scene back in Tennessee--I wish I would've had my camera with me, but at least I've got the picture burned into my memory. Those of you familiar with the area around Franklin would know where Hillsboro Road is. Well, just out of town, where it starts to get a little more rural, you come around a bend in the road and you'll see a huge red barn sitting in the middle of a field, and hanging from the hayloft is a giant American flag. Just a few hundred yards beyond the barn, the hills are completely covered in trees, and in the fall, it looks like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. I was driving my sister's Corvette around with my brother-in-law David that day--we were out just driving fast on the back roads outside of town--and I came around the bend and had to hit the brakes just a few yards up the road from that barn because a small herd of deer decided to cross the road right there in front of us.
It was an amazing sight. If I would've had a camera with me, I'm sure that picture would've been every bit as famous by now as the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, or that one of the girl in Afghanistan with the amazing eyes, and I'd have a Pulitzer prize for photography. Yep, it was that kind of scene. An amazing portrait of an autumn afternoon in rural Tennessee. In my mind, that's what I think of when people talk about a perfect fall day.
But I won't be enjoying that kind of scene around here anytime soon. There aren't many barns in Las Vegas, palm trees don't change colors, and Sunrise Mountain is covered in nothing but rocks. But it's a cool crisp fall day outside, and I'm curled up in bed with a cup of coffee and a good book, and I've got my apple spice scented candle providing the atmosphere.
And word on the street is that Starbucks has brought back their pumpkin lattes, too. Bring on the holidays!
Mikey
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